Recompense
by u2shay
Summary: Six months after the disappearance of her mother, Bella Swan follows the clues to Rio and into a world she never believed existed.


**Recompense**

**By **u2shay

**Description:** Six months after the disappearance of her mother, Bella Swan follows the clues to Rio and into a world she never believed existed.

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I pulled the windbreaker closer, hunching into its depths to ward off the slight chill in the tropical air. The rain was a thick mist that hovered more than fell. It soaked into my clothing and dampened my hair. There was a strange scent on the air, sweet and icy. Enticing, yet a flash of fear bolted through me and quaked over my skin. I shivered.

The latest tip had led me here. _Missão dos Anjos_. I'd spoken to the priest that resided here and ministered to those who daily searched the dumps outside of Rio for small treasures to sell so they could feed their families.

Renee had been missing for six months now. What had once been a charitable mission, my mother's latest obsession, had ended in her tragic death. Or what was assumed to be her death. They'd never found a body.

Apparently those commonly went missing in these _favelas_.

This wasn't the Brazil of the brochures—tropical and pristine with gleaming icons protecting those who dwelled below from high atop the overlooking cliffs. This was poverty. This was human desperation. This was broken hovels and garbage ridden streets. This is where my mother had come to make a difference after her short and grieved marriage to Phil the bitter, washed up baseball player.

She'd wanted to drown her sorrows over the breakup of yet another marriage by helping others, by using her skills as a teacher. This was where she'd met a man. A priest. Father Margulies. He'd eluded me as of yet, but I would find him.

According to his fellow priest, Father Alejandro Misas, Margulies was out of state—continuing his mission among the native tribes in the western regions for an extended period. I would follow him there. He'd conveniently fled Rio right around the same time as my mother's disappearance.

Quite honestly, I would be relieved to discard the disguise of the cloister. But it was a necessary thing for it offered me some protection to walk these streets as an agent of the Church. Long ago, I'd settled in my heart that I would risk my soul by lying to a priest and impersonating a nun if it meant finding my mother.

I gasped and pulled back into the shadows as I heard a clatter and rustling in the piled refuse that bordered the alley. The small passageway gleamed like a cavernous black hole before me. Something pale streaked out of the darkness and crouched just out of sight.

I backed against the rough adobe wall and reached for the Taser hanging from my belt. "Who's there?" Damn it, my voice trembled. The last thing I wanted to do here was show fear. "_Quem está aí? Revelar a si mesmo_."

There were odd scratching sounds, dragging and shuffling, and suddenly a small child revealed himself. _Meniños da rua._ A street child. There were so many. So very, very many.

The child had light brown hair with golden streaks that dusted the end of his floppy curls. It hung damply and dripping in his eyes, obscuring their color momentarily. The boy was filthy, naked, and streaked in rust. Blood?

What had been done to him? Had his family turned him out or did they live here—in this alley that bordered the mission?

I gasped as the child raised his head. His eyes were a piercing light gray-green and he had little dimples that creased his cheeks as he smiled. He was beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Blood was smeared across his mouth and his pink teeth gleamed in the low light of the setting sun.

A squeak emanated from the child's clenched grasp and I bit back my bile when I realized what it was.

A rat.

A very large, struggling rat with a bloody gash pumping blood and viscera from its torn center.

Jesus.

The rat's panicked squeak was cut short by a crunch and then it dangled lifelessly from the boy's hands. Such strength for a child that couldn't be more than three…maybe four.

Shit. Shit.

Tears filled my eyes as I shrugged out of the windbreaker. I motioned the child forward. I would take him back to the mission. To Father Misas. He had connections at the local orphanage. Surely, though overrun, they would be able to find a place for this child. Surely.

"_Venha cá, anjinho_," I said beckoningly. I'm not even sure if the child understood me. Had he even learned to speak?

The child backed away from me and into the darkness.

Fuck.

"_Não, baixinho. Não tenha medo."_

The child had disappeared. But I couldn't leave him.

I tripped over something limp and my foot skidded in the pooled slickness. Ugh. The rat. It was the fucking rat. I gagged.

I should stop. Go back. Go home. And what? Alert the authorities who wouldn't give a good damn about another lost kid—no matter how young. No matter his diet. Who would leave the boy to a life on the streets? A life stalked by death squads? By disease? By poverty? By hopelessness?

Fuck.

I plunged forward into the darkness. A door loomed before me. It hung from the hinges ragged and broken. A piercing screeched rent the air as I pushed it open further. "Little one? Come on, baby, where are you?"

I stepped over a lump of rags and ducked under the downward thrust of the slow ceiling. The dirt floor scrapped under my tennis shoes and glass crunched and ground under my steps. I could only hope that the soles of my shoes would hold up. The last thing I wanted was to get cut in here.

A giggle up ahead.

"_Menino?_"

Suddenly the child was before me. He lifted his arms. I sighed and squatted down. The child was so warm. I felt the heat of him bleeding through my coat as I wrapped it around his little naked body and hoisted him up. A fever maybe? Sickness was common, especially in ones abandoned so young.

"It's okay. You're okay now," I whispered.

Something inside me melted as the child snuggled closer, burying his face under my chin, against my neck. He was shivering in my arms and clinging to me with his hands clutching my hair and his thin little legs wrapped around my waist.

I rubbed his back and bowed my head over his as I turned to leave. I staggered under a sudden pain. It radiated through me from my neck to my toes. The arms that had clung to me for security now crushed me in their grip. I gurgled and tried to scream, but it was useless.

My legs collapsed under me. My knees ground into glass and dirt and debris.

He was biting me. _Biting_ me.

And so, I burned.

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A/N: This is the fruit of one of those odd little ideas that popped into my head one evening. I can't promise that I'll continue it, but I may. Feel free to follow. And if you'd like, drop me a review and let me know what you thought. :)

~Shay


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